Seeing purple in November

Epilepsy Awareness spreads during month

If you see purple ribbons around in November, it’s to mark Epilepsy Awareness Month.

Some people do not know what epilepsy is or have never even heard of it.

Epilepsy is one of the first brain disorders to be describe, according to the Mayo Clinic.

t’s a disorder of seizures, not a disease.

The cause of epilepsy is unknown; some people have developed the disorder by brain tumor, stroke, Alzheimer’s or are born with it.

One-in-26 adults will be diagnosed with epilepsy in their lifetime or one-in-twenty in children will be affected, according to the Epilepsy Foundation.

When a person has two or more unprovoked seizures, they have epilepsy, which affects more than 2 million people in the United States and 65 million people worldwide, according to the foundation.

This year, another 150,000 people in our country will be diagnosed with epilepsy, according to the foundation.

“Did you know that more people in the US die of Epilepsy each year than breast cancer? Horrible stats for both – awareness is the key #Epilepsyfacts,” said Caitie Shaw, co-founder of Epilepsy Awareness & Youth Empowerment Project, through her Twitter account @SandpaperSmiles.

Shaw is a Canadian resident, but uses the Internet to spread awareness worldwide.

Even though epilepsy can’t be cured, for some people it does go away.

There is hope out to find a cure for epilepsy, especially now.

“It is difficult, people who has epilepsy are on medication. People who has this go through a lot,” said Josh Gehman, a Delta College student who lives with epilepsy.
Many high-profile individuals have epilepsy, including musicians Prince and Susan Boyle and actor Hugo Weaving.

The Minnesota Gophers will be supporting Epilepsy awareness month by wearing a purple sticker for Head Coach Jerry Kill on Nov. 29.

Kill leads the University of Minnesota football team.

There are different kind of seizures that people with Epilepsy can suffer from, but the most common are Absence and Tonic Seizures, according to the Epilepsy Foundation.

This month will be filled with events for epilepsy.

This week at Disneyland the park is having an Epilepsy Awareness Day hosted by different foundations.

San Francisco has an Epilepsy foundation of Northern California and there are many more events around the world for Epilepsy go to cureepilepsy.org, the website for Citizens United to Cure Epilepsy, to find events in the area.